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September issue of East Bay Monthly:

StardustThe New Horizons satellite Pluto flyby is a reminder that we are part of the grand celestial scheme of things. Two artists examine our place within the big picture in Cosmic Crush, a title which presumably should be taken humorously, since it’s the name of a rudimentary internet game in which you, the planet-protagonist, try not to get creamed by other astral bodies plunging through the vacuum.

Cheryl Calleri and Younhee Paik, however, find the orbital ballet a fascinating and wonderful subject for imaginative exploration: Calleri, in sculptures and digital prints; Paik, in paintings. Calleri writes, “I am fascinated by what is beyond normal sight, what can only be observed by a telescope, microscope, particle accelerator or computer visualization system.” The artist, who has previously depicted the human nervous systems in semi-abstract prints, has here constructed orreries, i.e. mechanical models of the solar system. In the eighteenth-century, the orbiting planets were driven by clockwork gears and were used for education. Calleri’s orreries like “1492—Ferdinand and Isabella” are romantic and poetic, instead, and suggest alternate planetary systems, as well as, by implication, alternate histories (perhaps without genocide). Her related digital prints suggest planetary machinery, or remnants or relics of a failed machine. Paik’s lyrical abstractions like “Columbus Finds the Way” and “Ancient River Legend” depict outer space as a painterly field of energy traversed by orbs following dashed-line trajectories. Paik: Everything that consists of life is always moving and changing, nothing stays still or the same. Emotion and body, time and space, water and sky…” The art critic Eleanor Heartney wrote: “Paik’s work is about transformation and transition between the material and spiritual world. Wind, water and light, as symbols of change and movement, are recurring themes.” Artists’ talk September 12, 2:00pm. Through September 26. Vessel Art Gallery, 471 25th Street, Oakland; (510) 893-8800; www.vessel-gallery.com. —DeWitt Cheng